1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a lighting device and an illumination apparatus, and in particular to a lighting device which outputs a current to a solid-state light emitting element and an illumination apparatus which includes the lighting device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various lighting devices have been proposed as lighting devices which supply a current to solid-state light emitting elements such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-189004 (Patent Literature 1)).
Patent Literature 1 discloses a lighting device which includes a direct current-to-direct current (DC-to-DC) converter which is a single ended primary inductance converter (SEPIC). A SEPIC DC-to-DC converter performs buck-boost (step-up and step-down) operation. Furthermore, according to a SEPIC DC-to-DC converter, an inductor is connected to a commercial alternating current (AC) power supply, and a current flows by switching of a switching element during the entire cycle of the commercial AC power supply, thus improving a power-factor of an input current.